Album Review: Guitar by Mac DeMarco

Part of DeMarco's charm has always been his humble, laissez-faire attitude, which has endeared him to millions of fans worldwide. His past is filled with outlandish, zany experiences -- some good, some bad and some ugly -- coupled with an impressive discography that has cemented his reputation as one of indie music's golden boys. Guitar carries that mantle, but here, DeMarco is considerably more attuned to the introspective aspect of growing older, growing up and growing out of things.

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It's old news, but DeMarco is no longer the goofball party animal that fans and critics idolised, best shown in his earlier acclaimed output. Ever since the turning point that was 2019's pastoral Here Comes the Cowboy, he's steered his creative ship to calmer waters - DeMarco has grown older, matured, and loosened the safeguards on his music. Downing bottles of Jameson on stage and being photographed bathing in cigarettes are things of the past, given he's quit both vices.

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Mac DeMarco's sixth album comes after a collection of languid instrumentals (Five Easy Hot Dogs) and a mass ephemera dump (One Wayne G), making this his first 'proper' record in six years. Guitar reaffirms his commitment to relaxed simplicity that began after rising to fame over a decade ago. Unfussy arrangements and straightforward lyrics speak to the recent peace DeMarco has found after years of playing the jester and partying hard.

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Think of Mac DeMarco and you tend to think of the frat boy antics beloved of his live shows, the kind of hi-jinks that make Jackass look like a pre-school series. Beneath this, though, lies a lovelorn indie troubadour - albeit frequently smeared in irony, Mac's work is always touching, a space for feelings to reveal themselves. 'Guitar' is his most frankly emotional record to date - a song cycle that lingers on heartbreak and spiritual doubt, it's packed with the kind of late-night ennui that bedecked The Velvet Underground's famously bummed out third record.

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Between his prodigious streaming numbers and famously low-key lifestyle, Mac DeMarco could probably get away with not working again for the foreseeable future. This newfound place of comfort has freed him up, in recent years, to pursue more esoteric projects than we're used to (see the instrumental 'Five Easy Hot Dogs' and the mammoth, 199-track 'One Wayne G'), and has also granted him pause from a touring lifestyle that, by his own admission, was beginning to push him deeper into unhealthy habits. So why return to conventional records? Perhaps it's because he once again has something to say: he was audibly running out of ideas on 2019's last album proper, 'Here Comes the Cowboy', but on the simply-titled 'Guitar', he returns to lyrical form.

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Over the last few years, the loose, barebones style that made Mac DeMarco's music so inviting has calcified into a kind of languor. Once a source of intimacy, especially on 2017's confessional This Old Dog, this approach is starting to feel like creative stagnation. The Canadian singer-songwriter's sixth studio album, Guitar, boasts similarly skeletal arrangements and lo-fi textures of albums like 2019's Here Comes the Cowboy, but it also marks a tentative return to the more introspective songwriting that made This Old Dog so compelling.

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